The Chelsea manager put work before family in order to sign the star
midfielder from Barcelona and it has richly paid off

On Monday Jose Mourinho will take a rare day off and watch his son play football at the Fulham academy in Motspur Park in south-west London.

The Chelsea manager sets great store by family and he still agonises over the fact that he missed the best day of Jose Mario Junior’s fledgling career so far, although there were mitigating circumstances: he was signing Cesc Fabregas for Chelsea at the time.

“My son was in Germany with Fulham and they qualified to play in the final of a tournament and I wanted to go – that’s normal,” Mourinho recalls of that day in early June.

“I never go to watch him play and that weekend I wanted to go. But it was the only day that he [Fabregas] could travel to London so I had to stay to do my job. No problem. I will watch my son play other times.”

It was a win-win situation for Mourinho. Fabregas, after a mere 10-minute conversation, agreed to join Chelsea for £27 million from Barcelona, before heading to the World Cup with Spain while Jose Jr – a promising goalkeeper playing in the under-13/14 age group – helped Fulham to win their match, defeating Paris St‑Germain 1-0 in Nuremburg en route to winning the Jeno Konrad Trophy.

It is hard to tell which gave Mourinho more pride: his son’s achievements in Germany or the “clean” and “strong” way in which Chelsea signed Fabregas in what was one of the most surprising deals of the summer.

Arsène Wenger has suggested Chelsea’s move to sign the player he sold to Barcelona for £35 million three years ago was agreed some time ago – as if it were out of his hands – although the Arsenal manager also confirmed that he decided against activating the buy-back clause in the 27-year-old’s contract. Arsenal could have signed Fabregas if they wanted him. They simply decided against it because they had acquired Mesut Özil for £42 million.

Similarly, Fabregas – rightly or wrongly – did not feel truly wanted by Manchester United and did not feel he was their number one midfield target when they attempted to bring him back to the Premier League the summer before. Fabregas felt slighted. He felt he was second-choice to another Barcelona midfielder, Thiago Alcantara, who subsequently joined Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich. But David Moyes had already pulled the plug on that deal, which had been set up by Sir Alex Ferguson, to pursue Fabregas instead. At the same time Manchester City let it be known they were not joining any bidding war.

Whatever the truth – whether United failed to convince Fabregas, whether he wanted to play them off against Barca to try to improve his first-team chances, whether Arsenal erred in not activating their buy-back – Chelsea were decisive. “I was objective with him,” Mourinho says of his first meeting with Fabregas, explaining how he had dismissed how the player had been used in the team at Barca. “I gave him the different possibilities – with me you will play here, not there. This is the way we want to play, this is the way we are going to develop the team. No way with me are you going to play ‘fake No 9’, outside-left, outside-right. What I need is this, this and this’. Everything was so clean.

“We spoke about football. We spoke about the Chelsea project. We spoke about the way I want him to play, the way I want to transform my team, the Chelsea philosophy as a club. Not specifically, because it is not my job, but in general terms we spoke about what we would be able to pay to Barcelona, what we would be able to pay to him. Not to be decided there because, again, it is not my part of the job but just to give him an idea. And after that he said: ‘Yes, I want to go, no doubt’.

“He was really happy to join us. And after that I contacted my club and my club was so fast and so strong doing things – which I was not expecting, honestly, because normally these things take more time. But my club were fantastic.”

There is history between the pair, not all of it happy. Only last season Fabregas told the Chelsea and former Real Madrid manager to “shut up” and mind his own business after he criticised Barca. Mourinho brushes that aside: “The only thing I know is that when I spoke with him for the first time, obviously he knew I was the Chelsea manager.

“If he doesn’t want to come to Chelsea then I think he refuses to meet with me, he refuses to speak to me. Then in the meeting he told me immediately: ‘Yes’. I spoke with him and after 10 minutes he told me he wanted to join us. What happened before that I don’t know. What I know is that after that we did things properly. We went to Barcelona; we went to his agent.”

Fabregas will have to manage his emotions today, no matter how resilient he is. It is why, twice, during his pre-match briefings Mourinho spoke of the importance of the Chelsea home support. “You know the bad reception [for Fabregas] depends on Chelsea supporters,” he says. “Forty thousand Chelsea fans v 3,000 Arsenal fans. You can only listen to the 3,000 if the 40,000 allow it. So maybe he will only listen to Chelsea supporters supporting him.”

Mourinho is hardened to the abuse he faces. He expects the same from his players. “If Arsenal fans are in love with me then I have a problem,” he says. “I have a problem because it means I am not doing my job well at Chelsea. With the players it is exactly the same thing. How can a rival club love a player from a rival club? Cesc is doing so well for us.”

Fabregas is doing well – very well. His influence on Mourinho’s remoulded Chelsea team, the character he has brought and, most directly, the assists he has achieved, not least for the club’s other significant summer signing, Diego Costa, have been immense.

Chelsea are building a new spine and Fabregas is central to that. He has the strength of character to deal with the expectation, Mourinho states. The biggest thing he will have to manage today is his emotion.

Mourinho has no plans to speak to the player before the charged encounter. “Normally players at this level, they manage to play their game. He’s fine. I don’t need to speak with him. I can feel it. I can feel that it will be another game for him with that little bit that will be present before the match or in the first couple of minutes but he played with Barcelona against Arsenal in the Champions League – so no problem. I think he’s a top professional. For me, it’s been a great confirmation; a top professional. The way he behaves, the way he works – so another professional job for him on Sunday.”

After Sunday Mourinho’s squad will disperse on international duty before their Premier League title challenge resumes on Oct 18, with a trip to Crystal Palace. Mourinho will take just two days off and will shop with his wife, Tami, and also drive his son, known as ‘Zuca’, to Fulham’s academy. His daughter, Matilde, is 17 and at an age when she does not want her dad to escort her to college. Mourinho may have missed that match in Germany but he will argue it was a sacrifice worth making.